Thursday, 21 October 2010

The 2010 Halloween reviews continue today with an offering from Cadbury that had managed to fly under my usually well tuned 'New product' radar. Somehow or other I managed to miss this Cadbury press release in The Grocer magazine last month See HERE, which foretold the release of two limited edition Cadbury products made especially for the Halloween season - Cadbury Screme Eggs and the Cadbury Dead Heads. Having stumbled across the latter in Tesco last week, I thought I would give them a quick ChocolateMission review. Described as 'mini milk chocolate heads with a red caramel centre', I was hoping that these were going to offer the same sort of experience as normal Cadbury Caramel Mini Eggs - if they managed to be half as good I could see there being very few problems :D

These Cadbury Dead Heads came in a 80.0g bag that contained 9 egg shaped pieces inside. I'm sure you are all aware of my own general disinterest in Halloween, but I have to admit I was pretty shocked at the presentation of these Dead Heads. I don't know if this is me just being sensitive, but I felt there was something just not right with the whole Dead Head concept? From a company that produces the fun loving Freddo character, the concept of Heads filled with red goo seemed a little ... well ... a little graphic and unnecessary for little kids (who these are obviously marketed at!). I go more in to my thoughts on this more below.

Putting these distractions to one side (it wasn't hard!), I was of course more interested by the product at hand. Piercing the foil bag I was met with some familiar sweet smelling Cadbury scents, though they weren't quite as welcoming and pungent as normal due to them being covered in an additional light foil wrap. Aesthetically I was initially a bit disturbed by the artificial looking red coloured filling, but these initial worries were soon lay to rest. Despite the outer bag not mentioning it being so, the exterior milk chocolate layer was in actual fact Dairy Milk so everything in regards to chocolate was very much to my liking. Just as expected, the initial creamy cocoa flavours melted with signature Dairy Milk thick melt, slowly revealing the softer caramel centres. Comparing like-for-like, the caramel filling in these Dead Heads offered pretty much an identical experience to normal Cadbury Caramel products. There were however minor differences, most notably the viscosity with the Dead Heads caramel feeling a touch lighter and more fluid in it's melt. Whilst the buttery toffee flavours of the caramel were still pretty consistent (and delicious!), I felt they weren't quite as long lasting in the mouth - it definitely melted away faster than normal Cadbury Caramel. Despite this, four 'Heads' at a time was still a more than sufficient snack, quite why Cadbury gave the nutritional information in a half pack quantity when there were 9 in the bag I still fail to understand mind you :D

Overall these were a relatively decent Halloween themed product from Cadbury, but I still have some reservations around the product concept. At the heart of matters the Cadbury milk chocolate and the inner caramel were just about the standard you expect, with very little differentiation from any normal Cadbury Caramel product. Whilst everything was in order in regards to taste, what I couldn't ignore were my feelings towards the 'Dead Heads' concept in general. You may think that I'm labouring the point, or even talking complete gibberish, but I genuinely don't think that the whole 'Dead Heads' concept really fits with the Cadbury brand at all. Take a step back and think about the Cadbury Caramel Bunny, Cadbury Freddo etc and you have to admit that a product this graphic isn't the sort of thing you would associate with Cadbury - can you imagine Nestle or Mars making such a product? Kids like gross things, but don't you think these are a step too far? Let me know your thoughts on the matter.